What is Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy?

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a long-term treatment grounded in the unconscious, which is understood to be that part of ourselves that escapes our awareness but plays a decisive role in how we experience our own lives. It announces itself in slips of the tongue, dreams, symptoms, and the patterns we repeat without knowing why.

Rather than offering advice or ready-made solutions, analysis provides a space for something new to emerge: a shift in how we speak, desire, and live. It can be especially helpful for those caught in patterns of behaviour and thought that seem beyond our control.

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy can be helpful when…

  • Sometimes, no matter how much insight we might have, we find ourselves caught in the same situations again and again. From falling for someone new but facing the same unavailability and losing our job for the same reason, to yet again waking up hungover despite promises to stop, or watching yet another friendship unravel in the same pattern, etc, etc.

    Psychoanalysis takes these repetitions seriously. That is, not as failures of will, but as traces of something that is trying to be heard. In listening to those traces, something of its grip on our lives can start to loosen.

  • A symptom might appear irrational to others (anxiety, compulsions, self-sabotage, pain with no clear cause…), but it can absolutely hold meaning and feeling that ‘this makes no sense’ can exacerbate it. In psychoanalysis, symptoms are approached not as problems to eliminate, but as expressions of something that doesn’t yet have a place in your speech. By speaking freely, you may begin to hear the very real logic in these nonsensical symptoms. In other words, you can hear what it is they are trying to say.

  • Psychoanalysis offers a space to speak about the thoughts and feelings that don’t fit anywhere else. In other words, the ones that feel too shameful, too contradictory, or too much. For example, you might love someone and also feel anger or resentment toward them. You might experience desire, envy, or confusion where you think you shouldn’t. These contradictory and difficult truths live in all of us, and our way of responding to them often plays a crucial role in our lives.

    Psychoanalysis tries to help you untangle these complicated and difficult thoughts. If you're trying to make sense of your life in a way that no other space has allowed, analysis offers the time, structure, and freedom to do just that; slowly, seriously, and in your own words.

FAQs

What does psychoanalytic treatment involve?

There is no single, standard psychoanalytic treatment. Each analytic encounter is shaped by the analyst’s theoretical orientation (what School they belong to) and, more importantly, by their unique relation to the unconscious (what they can hear in another’s speech).

That said, psychoanalytic work typically involves saying whatever comes to mind, again and again. The analyst listens not just for meaning, but for what repeats, what slips through, or what remains unsaid. They may respond in unexpected ways, not to guide or advise, but to open space for something new to emerge.

Over time, this process may lead to a shift in how you relate to your symptoms, your questions, and your suffering. Rather than offering general advice, analysis works helps you build solutions that are unique to you.

Isn’t psychoanalysis disproven by now?

Psychoanalysis is not a science in the conventional sense. It doesn’t aim to predict or control behaviour, nor does it offer results that can be measured or replicated across individuals in a standardised way. Instead, it provides a way of listening to that which doesn’t fit into conscious understanding. In other words, it pays attention to non-sense i.e., to contradictions, deadlocks, and symptoms that persist even when everything else makes-sense.

That said, if you’re hesitant about starting analysis because of the more infamous aspects of its history, you’re not alone. Psychoanalysis hasn’t always done enough to confront the more problematic parts of its legacy. For decades, it remained largely inaccessible unless you had the time, money, and inclination to commit thousands of hours to the work. But if you do read enough Freud, you may be surprised by how often his work gestures toward complexity, contradiction, and even a kind of queerness. He was, after all, one of the first to argue that sexuality exists on a spectrum.

In addition, much of the early theory has been challenged, revised, or rethought over time, and very few contemporary analysts still hold hard-line Freudian positions. Like any school of thought, psychoanalysis has evolved.

In short, don’t let the weight of the tradition put you off. If you have concerns, bring them to your analyst. That, too, is part of the work.

What are the stages of psychoanalytic therapy?

Psychoanalysis does not follow fixed stages. While some earlier models (like Freud’s psychosexual phases) proposed linear developmental paths, contemporary psychoanalytic practice is not concerned with fitting people into theory.

Instead, we begin with the premise that each subject is singular. The work unfolds in response to what is said (and not said) in the analytic space. Because of this, no two treatments look the same, and there is no pre-determined progression or endpoint.

What is the difference between psychoanalysis and other forms of therapy?

This is a difficult question given how many therapeutic approaches are available today, and the fact that so many of them overlap when it comes to various positions or techniques.

However, as a loose response, what distinguishes psychoanalysis is its focus on the unconscious and its refusal to offer advice, tools, or pre-packaged solutions. Instead, it listens to the slips, the contradictions, the patterns, the symptoms, and the dreams that may not make logical sense. In so doing, it emphasises the idea that these nonsensical moments express something fundamental about your relation to enjoyment, loss, and yourself.

Rather than helping you adapt to the demands of the world, psychoanalysis creates a space where you can speak from where things don’t add up and where something unexpected might begin to take form.

Isn’t psychoanalysis anti-trans or homophobic?

Unfortunately some psychoanalysts (both historically and today) have held problematic or pathologising views of gender and sexuality, but there is nothing in psychoanalytic theory itself that requires these positions.

In fact, one of psychoanalysis’s most fundamental ethical positions is that gender and sexuality are not reducible to biology or norms but are formed in complex, singular ways. Because of this, when psychoanalysis begins to assume who or what someone ‘should’ be, it starts to break away from its own ethical framework, and we should all be cautious towards those theories.

If you’re thinking of starting analysis and have concerns about these issues, it is important and entirely appropriate to bring them up with your analyst.

How long is psychoanalytic treatment? How much is a session?

Psychoanalytic therapy is open-ended. It continues for as long as it feels necessary, and you are free to stop at any time. There are no fixed contracts or timelines.

Fees are discussed with your analyst during the preliminary sessions. These early conversations help establish a framework (in terms of time, money, and frequency) that makes the work possible for both parties.

Reach Out

If you are considering starting an analysis and would like to organise a preliminary consultation, please reach out via the contact form below or email info@empty-spacepsychoanalysis.com.